I really thought I would enjoy The Honorary Consul but unfortunately I found it really difficult. Having read Brighton Rock recently and really enjoying it I was looking forward to this. The novel centres around the bungled kidnapping of Charles Fortnum, who is essentially mistaken for the American Ambassador and taken. Into the mix we have Eduardo Plarr working with the kidnappers he is drawn into the story when Charles recognises him. To complicate matters Plarr is sleeping with Charles wife.

This novel explores a number of themes but primarily considers the love triangle between Eduardo, Charles and Clara. I found it difficult to feel sympathy for any of the characters, Eduardo especially began to grate on me. He just was not a character who was easy to like. His treatment of Clara and Charles was quite cold almost to the point of cruel. Brilliantly written but I found it a difficult read I just found it really hard to get into.

I make a point of never reading reviews before I read the book but when I went on Goodreads to record the fact that I was about to start the novel I must have somehow absorbed a word or two of the description. I distinctly remembered the word 'thriller'. Who had put it there I will never know, but it unfortunately came to colour my judgement. Without this word, with a different expectation, I might have liked the book better.
You see, I had a reason for wanting a thriller. I was to open the book on the day when I had to get up early, travel to the airport, take a flight, then survive for the whole day afterwards. The time difference between the two countries was only two hours, but there are times when it matters more than at others and unfortunately it was one of those days. The novel simply failed to read as a thriller. It failed to keep me awake by simply not being as interesting as I had hoped.
Having read it, however, I realize that it is a good novel and bitterly regret reading it for wrong reasons, so to speak. The ending nearly made up for all the long-winded religious arguments that I didn't appreciate at the time. I am yet to see whether the novel is described anywhere else as a thriller. And the word may have been chosen simply in the interests of marketing.

“I have to think of all the possibilities, doctor. Even a crime of passion is possible.’ ‘Passion?’ the doctor smiled. ‘I am an Englishman.”

I picked up a Graham Greene novel after a long time and it was pure nostalgia to be transported back to "Greeneland": usually a third-world country with a despotic government, with British expatriates forgotten by Her Majesty's Government, where the men are middle-aged, guilt-ridden and unable to love, men who have lost their faith in God and whose only outlets are the bottle or a prostitute. Where the search for redemption is their only remaining life force.

Dr, Plarr is the central character, a British-Parguayan doctor who sleeps with his patients' wives but loves none of them. He is secretly loyal to the revolution in Paraguay, to which he lost his father, and lives in a border town on the Argentinian side, while his exiled mother overdoses on pastry and sugar in the affluent suburbs of Buenos Aires. Plarr's foil is Fortnum, the Honorary Counsel, a Brit forgotten by his government, consigned to this outpost out of convenience, a drunk and aging man who has fallen in love with his twenty-year old wife Clara, a former prostitute from the town's whorehouse. Clara has slept with every man in town, including Dr. Plarr. She is presently carrying Plarr’s baby although Fortnum is under the impression that it is his own.

Revolutionaries from Paraguay flit over the border into Argentina in an attempt to kidnap the visiting US Ambassador, helped with some inside information from Plarr, but they capture Fortnum instead in a mixup. Thus starts the situation where Plarr is forced to save the man he hates and wishes dead. The pressure cooker plot corners the kidnappers, Plarr and Fortnum inside a shack in the barrio, surrounded by police who are determined to kill the perpetrators and rescue the Honorary Counsel. Fortnum and Plarr, and the kidnappers, are forced to face their mortality and come to terms with issues such as their belief in God, in love, and in justice. Often their conversations slump into becoming confessions.

Now that I am an older reader of Greene and not in idealistic awe of his work anymore, I found some limitations in this book: the dialogue was excessive went in circles at times, and scenes inside the shack were claustrophobic and resembled debates on the existence of God - as if Greene was trying to come to terms with his own conflicted faith. The metaphors were striking -e.g. Plarr the flawed Christ-like figure, sacrificing himself to save a bunch of sinners. And while the male characters were well drawn, the women lacked the same depth.

There were some interesting observations, or Greeneisms as I call them:
1) Writing is a cure for melancholy
2) There is a Great Church beyond our time and place, not the one on earth
3)God has good and evil inside Him, and so do we mortals

Now that I have read most of Greene's "Catholic" novels as opposed to his earlier "entertainments", I am convinced that he used his later writing to come to terms with his personal estrangement with the Catholic Church, to expose its failings, while affirming his belief that he could still be a good Catholic outside of his Church.

From BBC radio 4 - Drama :(31/01/2016)
In a conversation with Nicholas Shakespeare, Graham Greene once named 'The Honorary Consul' as his favourite among all his novels, "..because the characters change and that is very difficult to do."

In this superbly tense story of political kidnap and sexual betrayal set at the beginning of Argentina's Dirty War in early 1970s, Greene's characters find themselves on a switchback ride of love, sacrifice and violence.

Isolated Dr Eduardo Plarr, son of a missing political prisoner, is lured into collaborating with a defrocked priest in a kidnap plot, only to find the lives of two people he doesn't care for, suddenly in his hands.

Meanwhile Charles Fortnum, the elderly and drunken Honorary Consul in a one-horse town near the Paraguayan border, faces his own terrors, and the loss of the young prostitute he has fallen in love with.

Greene added: "For me the sinner and the saint can meet; there is no discontinuity, no rupture... The basic element I admire in Christianity is its sense of moral failure. That is its very foundation. For once you're conscious of personal failure, then perhaps in future you become a little less fallible. In 'The Honorary Consul' I did suggest this idea, through the guerrilla priest, that God and the devil were actually one and the same person - God had a day-time and a night-time face, but that He evolved, as Christ tended to prove, towards His day-time face - absolute goodness - thanks to each positive act of men."

In this concluding episode, Plarr's attempts to help Charley get him death threats from the police. Not only is the state closing in on Plarr, but his own past too.

Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06z1zf4

A movie was made based on this book: Beyond the Limit (1983) with Michael Caine, Richard Gere, Bob Hoskins.



3* The Third Man
4* The End of the Affair
4* Our Man in Havana
3* The Captain and the Enemy
3* The Quiet American
4* The Ministry of Fear
4* The Power and the Glory
4* TR The Honorary Consul
TR Brighton Rock
TR Travels With My Aunt
TR The Tenth Man
TR Monsignor Quixote
TR The Heart of the Matter
TR Orient Express

The bookmark for the hardbound edition (discovered in a thrift shop selling old clothes and gifted to me by the wife in our anniversary) that I had for my second reading of Graham Greene's "The Honorary Consul" is rather intriguing in its own way. The note at the back of the medieval picture describes it as "The First Kiss Of Lancelot and Guinevere", an illumination from LANCELOT DU LAC, a painting from around 1310. Some of us might know already that the tryst between Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere was one of the catastrophic incidents that led to the dissolution of the Round Table and of King Arthur's reign as well. It is a classic travesty of infidelity and thus the consequences of the illicit act and the conundrums of loyalty and love that it entailed are encapsulated in this portrait perfectly. The bookmark thus complements the novel - a thriller about a wrong kidnapping and its consequences, surely, but also a thriller, not of politics or crime, but rather of the human soul.

A thriller of the human soul....now, how many thrillers or novels for that matter can be described with that intriguing name, I wonder? Perhaps, one would only have to revisit the nineteenth century to find an equivalent - perhaps in the novels of Dickens or in Stevenson's adventures which could feature the themes of betrayal and danger convincingly as well as characters who could not be trusted entirely or even villains who were not wholly evil. Greene, perhaps the only author of the twentieth century, to usher in the same sense of danger and suspicion, even in the relationships of love and friendship, had always been fascinated with these authors - and so "The Honorary Consul" can be deemed as a rousing ode to these novels about greedy uncles who got their own unsuspecting nephews abducted and sold as slaves and about unreliable father figures and guardians who could get their own wards killed or plunged into mortal danger.

But eventually, Greene's novel is far beyond all the usual tales of drama and heroism - it is a tale rooted in the grim and dangerous reality of the world we live in, just as "Oliver Twist" followed its titular character through the sordid streets of London and "Kidnapped" followed David Balfour as he tried to wade through dangerous political upheavals in the Scottish highlands. It is set in one of the author's beloved landscapes - the South American milieu of violence and machismo, of romantic passion and revolution and indeed, how astutely, through its exquisitely orchestrated plot of an old, bamboozled British Consul, wrongly kidnapped by a ragged band of Paraguayan rebels in a not-so-sleepy Argentinian town, does this writer portray, intelligently yet intimately, the dilemma between idealism and betrayal, between hope and despair, that haunts this terrain, ruled by despotic tyrants, fed on American aid and yet lingering in vain on the brink of some hope of change.

Neither is Greene's interest merely political - this was a writer, who, as Maria Aurora Couto once said, never lost grasp of the "the human factor" - the never-simple tangle of human relationships, feelings and emotions, of hope and pathos that elevates even his entertainments to the rank of great literature. And "The Honorary Consul", true to his signature style, is filled to the brim with characters, fascinating and brilliantly etched - men and women, priests and policemen, writers and exiles, prostitutes and criminals - people who are utterly believable and deserving of empathy in their flaws and virtues, in their delusions and fears, in their deceptions and confessions. There is indeed a story of kidnapping and a deadline approaching dangerously at the crux of the novel but Greene also makes sure that each flashback reveals a character's emotional and moral depth, each conversation develops an utterly believable relationship among them and that through their actions and decisions, the reader is compelled skillfully to think and dwell on the irony of the situation. The consul, Charley Fortnum and his unimportant stature makes it even more difficult for the authorities to save him and the only man who wants to do something is the much younger and more dispassionate Eduardo Plarr, his wife's illicit lover, who seems to have discovered finally a purpose to his burnt-out, fatherless existence.

In this sad yet strangely story of these two men and their captors, themselves despairing men chasing a lost cause and fighting a lost battle, Greene delivers something unexpected - a thriller that deftly deconstructs and disinters the quixotic romance behind the English stiff upper lip and the despair that lies coiled behind the Spanish ideal of machismo. And in case one would think that the writer has lost his knack for suspense, think again. There's a constant sense of unease in the proceedings, even in the beginning of an affair or in the conversations made inside a hut of tin and mud in the barrio of the poor while the clocks wind down to the deadline.

In the last fifty pages of the novel, Greene even makes us live, talk, listen, eat and sleep and wait along with these hapless rebels and their victim, unaware of what would happen next. To take up such a brave challenge at a time when you are already established as a great author? To write your eighteenth novel with the same energy and passion of your first? Nobody else than Greene could have succeeded on both counts and still deliver a masterpiece of pure, potent storytelling.

Δυστυχώς δεν μπορώ να πω ότι ξετρελάθηκα. Νομίζω πως φλυαρεί και ηθικολογεί σε μεγάλο βαθμό, έχοντας μόνο ένα μικρό κομμάτι για την ανάπτυξη της πλοκής. Πολυάριθμοι, εξαντλητικοί και επαναλαμβανόμενοι διάλογοι. Παρά το μεγάλο μέγεθος του βιβλίου που αφιερώθηκε στο χτίσιμο των χαρακτήρων δεν με τράβηξε να νοιαστώ και τόσο για την τύχη τους στο τέλος.

This book doesn’t seem to have much of reputation as some of Greene’s other works, which is too bad as it is excellent and even brilliant. In fact it might be one of my favorites. This has every element I look for in a Greene novel but with a stronger emotional charge. The characters with their foibles seem to be a cast for a comedy but instead are players in a heart wrenching tragedy. Like in his Comedians the line between slit your wrist despair and humor is very hard to find though the sadness lingers. This is one of the prominent themes along with a critique of machismo in Argentinean culture, parody of the detective novel, and the place of religion in the blood drenched politics of the 20th century. Like Harold Bloom who refuses religion on the basis of Concentration Camps and Schizophrenia, Greene’s characters ponder whether we are living in the “night side” of God. How could a just God witness the world we live in? This book also examples Greene’s incredible political foresight, as this was published three years before Argentina’s horrible “dirty war” but predicts nearly every element of it. Plus one of the characters reads Borges.

Compelling at times but suffocated under the weight of catholicism and misogyny.

Not as powerful as 'The Power and the Glory,' not as funny as 'Our Man in Havana,' Greene still builds suspense and psychological depth, and provides the occasional laugh. I read somewhere that this was one of his personal favorites. The ending surprised me a bit, but not in a bad way.

An intense kidnap thriller filled with religious despair, South American machismo, tangled love triangles and lots of whiskey. A bunch of revolutionaries kidnap the hard drinking Charley Fortnum (who is Britain's Honorary Consul in Argentina), mistaking him for the British ambassador. His friend and ex-prostitute wife's lover Dr. Eduardo Plarr (who is half English-half Argentinian) sets out to rescue him from the clutches of the kidnappers. Some of the kidnappers used to be Dr.Plarr's friends and Plarr is at the center of the kidnap drama when the kidnappers lure him using his missing father who was also a revolutionary.

Catholic guilt is one of the central themes of the novel. The head of the revolutionary kidnappers is an ex-priest and he becomes conflicted at the prospect of having to murder Fortnum when he realizes that British and Argentinian authorities have no interest in negotiating the release of a honorary consul. The latter half of the novel is filled with long discussions between the kidnappers, Fortnum and Plarr about Christinaity, sin and forgiveness. It does get a bit long-winded and funny after a while.

South American machismo as represented by the revolutionaries and a writer called Dr.Savendra (he writes novels filled with revenge and male characters who lay down their lives to protect their manhood) is compared to the British characters who are all self-pitying, alcoholic and in a state of retreat.

Graham Greene's novels almost always feature intense love triangles and even quadrangles that are supposed to represent power struggles between various nationalities and ideologies. The Honorary Consul is no different. In The Quiet American, an ageing British journalist and a young American CIA agent covet a Vietnamese prostitute. Here, Dr. Plarr covets Clara, Fortnum's wife who used to be a prostitute. In both novels, it is the British character who is ageing and not sure about his future. I guess they are supposed to represent waning British control of the world.

Alcohol is an important part of all of Greene's novels. These characters who look with fear and despair at the future have no other crutch except alcohol. I have often felt like pouring a few drinks while reading Greene novels. Alcohol is more like Greene's fantasy rather than social commentary.

This was a very entertaining novel for the most part. If only Greene had cut down a little on the long religious discussions during the kidnap drama, it would have been a better novel.

Tutto sommato un bel romanzo, anche se non mi ha molto coinvolto. Inquadrarlo o classificarlo non è facile: non è propriamente un thriller (non ne ha il ritmo serrato e ipnotico, né la tensione incipiente) nè un giallo nè un noir, mancando sia il mistero che l'atmosfera. E' tuttavia ben scritto, e ben ponderato.
Lo definirei più che altro un romanzo di introspezione psicologica, soprattutto di un viaggio nella mente normale e per nulla amabile del dottor Eduardo Plarr, un medico argentino di padre inglese che si ritrova suo malgrado invischiato nel rapimento del console onorario (che è poco più di un titolo onorifico privo di valore) britannico, nonché suo amico, Charley Fortnum. Quest'ultimo è un vecchio disilluso, non particolarmente intelligente, perennemente ubriaco che - in un ultimo scatto di vitalità - s'è sposato una certa Clara, giovanissima indigena pescata nel bordello di paese. Plarr, amico e medico curante (suo malgrado) del vecchio Fortnum, che apparentemente disistima profondamente, è giovane, sufficientemente sfrontato e indifferente da tutto da prendersi la ragazza come amante e metterla incinta. Nel tran tran quotidiano fatto di corna e indifferenza e in cui l'amore non esiste, o è tutt'al più è ridotto a pietosa pantomima, almeno apparentemente, un disguido stravolge tutto: Fortnum viene rapito per errore da alcuni guerriglieri paraguaiani comunisti, che lo scambiano per l'ambasciatore americano (bersaglio ben più importante). La dritta gliela da Eduardo, loro vecchio amico d'infanzia: non per affinità ideologica, ma sperando con questo di ottenere il rilascio del vecchio padre, detenuto nelle carceri paraguiaiane da molti anni.
Il rapimento, ideato male, si svolge peggio, nel massimo pressapochismo e dilettantismo, coinvolgendo lo stesso Eduardo, che tenta di salvare il vecchio Fortnum (che dopotutto non gli è poi così indifferente). La veglia del rapito, che si svolge nella speranza di una resa del governo paraguaiano (siamo negli anni della dittatura sanguinaria di Stroessner) e della polizia argentina, è una lunga - e devo dire molto affascinante e ben scritta - riflessione sulla religione e sulla morte.

Alla fine Plarr e Fortnum scoprono di volersi bene, nonostante il ferale tradimento scoperto all'ultimo momento e Plarr scopre di essere in fondo assai più simile al padre di quanto avesse mai creduto. Un'altra cosa si scopre alla fine, oltre al fatto che il vecchio console ubriacone è la figura umanamente migliore del libro: che l'amore è assai più forte e persistente dell'indifferenza, nonostante tutto.

L'amore, signori, è come una nebbia dolce densa e odorosa che persistendo aleggia in fondo all'anima e la attanaglia e appesantisce e addolcisce e, quando finisce, si degrada in un dolciastro nauseante odore di decomposizione: così la romantica nebbiolina di una tersa giornata primaverile che appare sulla superficie di un incantevole lago montano diventa greve e ammuffita umidità che pesantemente emerge dal fangoso fondale di una immota e morta palude.

La qual cosa c'entra poco col libro, ma molto col mondo reale.

Amen.